


Caught Knapping

by amythis



Category: Laverne & Shirley (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 21,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26063032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amythis/pseuds/amythis
Summary: In the early 1970s, a widowed Shirley Feeney Meeney has one-night stands with three men she grew up with.  (This is a side story to myLenny Is a Rock Starseries.)
Relationships: Shirley Feeney/Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman, Shirley Feeney/Carmine Ragusa, Shirley Feeney/Lenny Kosnowski
Comments: 101
Kudos: 2
Collections: Lenny is a Rockstar 'Verse





	1. American Graffiti

"All three of them?" Rosie cackles. "And they call me the Merry Widow!"

Shirley shakes her head. "It wasn't like that."

....

In her head, she was Doris Day and Ann Marie (That Girl, not the nun), arriving in New York City fresh as a daisy in crisp, fashionable clothes. In reality, she was in jeans and a NOVA T-shirt, although they had been well ironed when she set out that morning. At least there were daisy decals on her yellow VW Bug, put there by her niece and nephew.

It was the summer of 1970 and she had just finished her General Ed requirements at Northern Virginia Technical College, a still newish campus in Annandale. (It opened in '67, the year before she started.) She was going to transfer to George Mason University in the Fall and planned to major in Nursing. She was 32 and the mother of a toddler, but in her "coed clothes" and dark auburn ponytails, she looked a decade younger.

"The dimples help," her sister-in-law Jeanie Meeney Sweeney often observed. Jeanie was 35 and looked 40, but she dated more than Shirley did. "Divorce is different than death" was another of her commonsense comments. It wasn't that Shirley didn't get asked out, including by college boys, but how could she dishonor Walter's memory by dating less than two years after his loss?

Not that Jeanie, and Kenny and Linda, hadn't teased her about going to New York to see her old boyfriend.

"We're just friends now," Shirley insisted. "And I'm proud of him for his stage success." She'd missed him in _Hair_ , but she was going to surprise him by seeing _Oh! Calcutta!_ She didn't know what the latter musical was about, but she figured it had something to do with India, maybe a life of Gandhi with song and dance. She'd heard off-Broadway productions were a little strange, but she would try to keep an open mind.

She'd given Walter, Jr. a big hug and tried not to feel too guilty that this would be the longest they'd ever been apart. Jeanie was a wonderful aunt, and she looked after Wally when Shirley was on campus, but it was about three and a half hours each way to and from New York, plus maybe two hours for the play, and probably an hour or two to catch up with Carmine, so about ten hours total. Still, Jeanie had insisted she go and have fun.

She got a little nervous about traffic when she got to the City, but she was able to find the theater, and parking. She'd brought the GMU Fall catalog with her, since she didn't have to register for classes until the following week and she was still mulling it over. She had her nose buried in the catalog as she waited in line. She didn't mind that nearly everyone else seemed to be part of a couple or a group of friends. Unlike Laverne, she didn't mind going out in public on her own.

She'd seen Laverne once since returning to America from Germany. (She'd stayed behind in Berlin, very pregnant, when Walter got shipped out to Saigon.) Laverne was herself a new mother by then, of a little girl. Shirley had always imagined Laverne with sons, herself with daughters, maybe because Laverne was the tomboy and Shirley was the feminine one, although that had blurred at times. And of course Laverne's father made no secret of the fact that he wanted a grandson. "Next time, Pop," she promised, and Shirley decided not to point out that the future was not that easily predicted.

Shirley had never met Laverne's husband, Lee Levy, before. It was another of Laverne's whirlwind romances, but this time Laverne did not falter at the altar. Lee gave her goosebumps and they both enjoyed arguing. At the time Shirley met him, last summer, he was twenty-six and fresh out of law school, after a stint in Vietnam. That made him sound "straighter" and more "Establishment" than he was. Yes, Laverne had landed a "professional man," without ever having that as a goal, but his dark hair and beard were long and bushy, and he wanted to defend "the little guy."

This wasn't Mr. DeFazio's dream son-in-law. That Lee, birth name Levi Levy, was not only not an Italian but an agnostic Jew from Boston didn't help. Yet Laverne was finally married, and that was wonderful in itself. And grandsons would come in time. (Frank nonetheless doted on baby Tracy, who he called "Babà," after the small Italian cake.)

Laverne still lived in southern California, as did Squiggy, who refused to abandon his talent agency, even after Lenny left town to pursue music. (Why Lenny couldn't do this in LA would've baffled anyone who didn't know his complicated friendship with Laverne.) Shirley had considered moving back to Burbank, with Wally, but her sister-in-law had generously opened her home in Virginia and offered to help with her only nephew. And Jeanie was less suffocating than Shirley's friends or family of origin, much as she loved all of them.

Carmine left for New York several months after Shirley's departure and she hadn't seen him since he, Laverne, and the boys headed off to a dance. Shirley hadn't wanted to attend because she was self-conscious about her rapid weight gain in the first trimester. Laverne had teased, "I'm sure someone will take pity on a fat girl," so Shirley had teased back, "Three dates, Laverne? Even Rhonda would find that excessive."

Shirley knew that Carmine and Laverne had had a little something, not a fling, making out and infatuation at most according to her, hanging out and insulting each other according to him, years and years ago. Since then, well, there had been moments, some observed by Shirley, of sexual tension, but Laverne insisted that even after Shirley left, nothing really happened, other than they became closer friends. Carmine came back for the Levy-DeFazio wedding, which he sang at, and Laverne had vague plans to visit Carmine in New York, probably when Tracy was older and could appreciate it. (Laverne's grandmother hadn't lived to become a great-grandmother, but she had, Laverne had told Shirley, remarked on the phone, "A nice Jewish boy? She could do worse.")

As for Laverne and Lenny, well, that was always sort of one-sided. Lenny adored Laverne, in some ways since high school, if not earlier. Laverne's feelings were murkier, but Shirley also knew her best friend was too crazy about Lee to even think about another man, and she wasn't going to think about Lenny as anything but a good friend whom she'd kissed maybe half a dozen times.

The idea of Laverne with Squiggy was of course ridiculous. Well, Squiggy and anyone, but especially Laverne, who wouldn't put up with any of his crap for a second. Plus, he wasn't tall or muscular.

Anyway, just because they'd grown up with those men did not mean that they were required to become romantically involved with them. They were all a long way from Knapp Street. Yes, Shirley had dated Carmine off and on for almost fifteen years, but that was the past.

She could go to New York City, support his career, reminisce, and drive back to Annandale. She honestly didn't expect more than a nice hug and a kiss on the cheek, less if he happened to have a jealous girlfriend.

She was startled when she got carded at the ticket booth. Maybe the scenes of Mahatma Gandhi's hunger strikes got a little graphic. It was probably as well she'd left Wally at home. She showed her Virginia driver's license, paid for her ticket, and went in. She tucked her program into the catalog.

The penny didn't drop until the obscenity-filled prologue. She'd never heard the word "cock" so many times in a few minutes, not even when she went to cocktail parties with Walter. And that wasn't even the most shocking word.

She tried to keep an open mind, which lasted until the opening number, when Carmine Ragusa and his co-stars did "Taking Off the Robe."


	2. The First Nudie Musical

Shirley could've of course snuck out, if not right away, at the intermission. Carmine didn't even know she was in town and it wasn't like he'd invited her. She'd have to make up some story for Jeanie, like the car stalling in Philadelphia or the show being sold out, but that wouldn't be too difficult.

Still, she remained seated. Some of it was shock and disbelief. She was so paralyzed by what she was seeing and hearing that she didn't even know if she could stand up. She was also simply curious, because this was unlike any other form of entertainment she'd ever experienced. (There were X-rated movies at that point, but Shirley would never have dreamed of seeing one.). That one of the naked people onstage was her ex-boyfriend certainly stirred her curiosity, and other emotions.

In all the time they dated, she never saw him in less than trunks, for swimming or boxing. She knew he had a good body, compact but fit and muscular, a dancer's body as well as a boxer's body. But she had been a good girl, saving herself for her wedding night, even as the Sixties marched on and she pushed thirty. So, no matter how much she enjoyed making out with him, no matter how much he turned her on, and no matter how much she loved him, she resisted.

Carmine understood the boundaries. He'd push against them, but he knew she'd push back. He took a lot of cold showers and he dated other women, some of whom he took to bed, but Shirley never wanted details.

She dated other men, to varying degrees of seriousness, but she never did more than make out with any of them either. She did indeed wait for her wedding night, well, a week after her wedding night. Walter had an all-over rash and was wrapped in bandages on their wedding day. So she had to wait for his flesh to recover before she could see it and touch it.

She had no real basis for comparison, not when it came to private parts. As she sat in that darkened little theater, she couldn't help wondering what it would've been like if she'd so many naked men before she got married. Not that she was ogling. She was doing her best to not look below shoulders. But it wasn't as if any of the performers stood in place. This was a musical after all.

She felt oddly proud that Carmine had, in her opinion, the best male body onstage. Not that she could take any credit, but she remembered touching those shoulders, that chest. Those arms had held her at every high school dance. As for the parts that his trunks had covered, the glimpses she couldn't help catching were definitely intriguing.

Under the circumstances, it was difficult for Shirley to judge the quality of the play. Carmine sang and danced well of course, but she couldn't judge his acting, and she didn't know what to think of his costars.

When intermission came, she did think about going back to her car. Maybe she could see a movie, preferably something G-rated. Perhaps _The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes_ was playing at a discount theater. But she decided she'd already invested money and time in _Oh! Calcutta!_ , so she may as well see it through to the end.

She went to the ladies' room at intermission and was startled by her own appearance. She looked so young and unsophisticated. She thought of taking her hair out of the ponytails, but then she decided it didn't matter what she looked like. With all those gorgeous naked women onstage, who'd notice her?

The second half of the show seemed to go much faster, maybe because some of the shock had worn off. Also, the closer they got to the finale, the more urgent it became to decide whether to say hello to Carmine. In the end, she just couldn't bear the thought of going to his dressing room, if such a thing existed for a production like this.

She left the theater right after the curtain call, not that there were actual curtains. (Even the stage was rather bare.) She had helped support Carmine's career financially, even if she didn't really approve. She'd drive back to Annandale, thinking of plausible lies for her sister-in-law along the way.

She went out to the car, got in, psyched herself up for the drive back, and turned the key. But the car wouldn't start. She looked and was very surprised to see the arrow pointing at E. She had filled the tank in Philadelphia. It should still be mostly full.

She sighed, got out of the car, and checked with the dipstick. Yes, empty. "But how?" she murmured.

"Excuse me, Miss, do you need some help?" asked a once familiar voice.


	3. Gas! or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It

Shirley turned and looked at Carmine. He was unsurprisingly fully clothed, well, in shorts and a T-shirt since it was summer in New York. She met his brown eyes and saw he was staring at her in disbelief equal to her disbelief a couple hours earlier. She was of course not naked but he must've wondered what she was doing in the City, just outside his theater.

"Shirley?" he whispered, as if she might be just a lookalike.

"Hi, Carmine. I seem to be having a little car trouble."

Suddenly he shifted into the Carmine of a dozen years before. During their first time as friendly exes, he helped her and Laverne buy a car from Lucille Lockwash, the sort of rich, somewhat older, blonde divorcée he was seeing. It was Shirley's first car and he taught her how to care for it. He now came closer and asked, "What kind of trouble?" She explained and he nodded. "Someone must've siphoned it."

"Why would they do that?" she said in dismay. It seemed such a random crime. She could've better understood being mugged.

He shook his head. "Shirl, what are you doin' on your own in New York?" He made it sound like she was a helpless waif lost in the big, scary city.

"I came to see your disgusting play!" she snapped.

He blushed and mumbled, "Wait right there."

She wanted to say, "How can I go anywhere without gas?" But she just nodded and watched as he walked over to some of his costars, who were standing outside the theater, smoking and signing autographs. 

He came back with all the men and one woman who was built like Terry Buttafucco. Then they all started pushing her Bug down the street.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"To Saul's Deli," Carmine panted over his shoulder.

That rendered her speechless, not for the first time that afternoon. But she trailed after them, and the deli turned out to be only a couple blocks away. Then Carmine thanked his friends, who headed back to the theater.

"Why are we at a delicatessen?" she asked.

"Saul can keep an eye on your car while we walk to the nearest gas station. You have a gas can I hope."

"Um, yes," she said, hoping that that hadn't been stolen, too.

"Great. You can get it out while I talk to Saul."

She could've argued that she didn't need his help, but it was a little late for that. So a few minutes later, she found herself walking to a gas station with her old boyfriend.

"So you think my play is disgusting, huh?"

"I'm sorry, that was harsh of me."

"I still don't understand why you went to see it."

"Laverne told me the title but not what it was about."

He shook his head. "She doesn't know, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't say anything. Not that I'm ashamed, but you know what she's like."

Shirley said, "All right," although she wasn't sure how he meant that. Was he referring to how Laverne would joke and tease about Carmine's role in such a production, or did he mean that her best friend would want to know the details of his anatomy? Either way, it was a promise she intended to keep.

"If you'd told me you wanted to see it, I could've warned you."

"I wanted to surprise you."

"Well, it worked." After a moment, they both laughed self-consciously. Then he said, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...."

"What?" He couldn't have forgotten her married name, could he?

"You know the old one-liner, 'Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?' In this case meaning, other than my disgusting play and your gasoline theft, I hope you're enjoying your visit to our fair city."

"Well, that's all that's happened so far."

"We'll have to make sure something nice happens to you." He didn't say it flirtily, but then he reached for her gas can, which reminded her of him carrying her books home from school.

He waited until their walk back to say, "So do you have to head back to Virginia right away or can you grab a bite to eat?"

"I can hang out awhile but I didn't bring a change of clothes, so we can't go anywhere too fancy."

"You look fine for where I'm taking you."

They got back to the deli, but he took the gas can inside rather than fill her tank. She followed him in and over to the counter. She looked at the menu on the wall. She'd tried to eat healthy for the past five years, since she moved from Milwaukee to Burbank, although she had lapses. She decided to go with the most vegetarian-sounding sandwich: lettuce, tomato, avocado, and onion. And orange juice.

"Should we get a table?" she asked, when their food was ready and he paid for it. Maybe he'd want to eat in a park or something.

"Nah, we'll take it upstairs."

"Upstairs?"

"Yeah, to my apartment."


	4. The Biggest Fan

When Carmine first moved to New York, he got an apartment with Rick West, who he met at the _Hair_ audition. Their place was apparently tiny but the best they could afford. After a year, Rick got a job in children's educational television and moved out to be closer to the studio.

At the same time, Lenny was ready to move on after a year of doing sessions work in Chicago, the first town he took his broken heart to in the wake of Laverne's marriage. Carmine was at that point actually better friends with Squiggy than he was with Lenny, but he got along with both boys much better than when they were all in their teens. So Lenny moved to New York and soon made enough money in music that, combined with what Carmine got in theater and the occasional commercial, they were able to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

But when Lenny get restless again and moved to Detroit, Carmine got his own apartment, above his favorite deli. It had a sink and toilet, but he had to shower at the theater. There was no kitchen, but Carmine got most of his food, including breakfast, from the deli. It wasn't a luxurious lifestyle, but it was convenient.

Some of this Shirley already knew and some Carmine told her as they ate. She updated him on her life, although he knew the general outline of the almost three years since they last met.

"So why college and why nursing?"

"Well, you know I always wanted to be a wife and mother, but losing Walter changed that plan. Now I have to look after our son without him. And you know I've always been interested in medicine."

He teased, "I know you've always been interested in doctors."

She blushed but persisted. "I enjoyed candy-striping years ago, although it's very hard work. And nursing is more on the medical side of things."

"So why not nursing school?"

"I'm still exploring my options and it'd be easier to do that at a university, where I could just switch majors."

He nodded and swallowed. She got distracted for a moment, looking at his throat. She met his eyes again as he said, "That makes sense. And I want you to know I'm real proud of you. A lot of people would've collapsed if they lost a spouse and had to raise a kid on their own. But you've still got that Feeney spunk."

She sang a little of "High Hopes," making him smile. But she stopped singing and shook her head before he could join in. "I'm just doing what I have to."

"Well, I still admire you."

"Thank you but I couldn't do this without Walter's sister."

He grinned. "Jeanie Meeney Sweeney?" He and the boys were understandably amused by the rhyming names of the two sisters-in-law. Jeanie was used to it from childhood of course, but she embraced her identity because "no one forgets my name." In fact, she joked that she wanted to marry Shirley's widowed brother Michael, although they had never met.

"Yes, she lets me live with her rent-free and she looks after Wally when I'm gone." Shirley frowned, feeling guilty for being away from her son, especially for such a mixed day.

"I'd like to meet him."

"He's too little for a long car ride."

"No, I mean maybe I could visit you in Virginia, if that's OK."

Even as she said, "I'd like that," she couldn't help thinking how strange it would be to have her worlds collide like that. Also, it would add fuel to Jeanie's teasing about Shirley's old boyfriend.

Then he asked, "So, uh, are you seeing anyone?"

"With a baby and college? I don't have the time. Besides, it's too soon."

"Oh, yeah, right."

She couldn't help asking, "Are you seeing anyone?" She knew it was wrong, but she'd always been a little possessive of him. From the time of their having a post-Lockwash understanding to her initial anger that he'd fallen in love while she was becoming engaged to Walter, she had wanted Carmine to always be waiting for her. Laverne had told her more than once that this wasn't fair, but it wasn't like Carmine hadn't been possessive of her at times, like on her last trip to New York, when he paid Lenny to keep Shirley from cheating on him and then himself showed up and yelled at her for a harmless flirtation with Laverne's cousin.

"Nothing serious."

She nodded and finished her sandwich. Even when he fell in love, it never seemed to last more than a couple months. She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and said, "I should probably head back." She got to her feet.

He also got up from a folding chair. "Can I have a hug goodbye?"

She'd assumed he'd walk her to her car, especially since they still needed to fill her gas tank. But she said, "Of course."

He came around the card table and put his arms around her. Thousands of hugs came back to her. Her body remembered this body that she knew so much better, if less intimately, than that of her late husband. She'd had less than a year with Walter, and it could not wipe out fifteen years with Carmine.

"I've missed you, Angel Face."

The old pet name, which he'd used even during their '58 breakup. She met his warm brown eyes and admitted, "I've missed you, too."

They softly kissed on the lips, perhaps their hundred-thousandth kiss.

When it ended, he teased, "Sorry, I forgot you're not dating yet."

"Well, this isn't exactly a date."

"I don't know. A meal and a show?"

Then they kissed again, more warmly this time. Soon they were using their tongues and hands. He stroked her ponytails and she caressed his shoulders, and she remembered kisses like this in high school. Only now her curfew was different. Well, she had budgeted an hour or two to see Carmine, and she was still in that timeframe.

When this kiss ended, she teased, "You're sweating a little."

"So are you."

"No, women glow."

"Then you're glowing."

She blushed. "Maybe a little."

He let go. "I'll get the fan."

She wanted to make a pun about him having fans as a performer, but she was too distracted by the sight of him in a sweat-stained T-shirt. She could still feel his sweat on her, although some of that might've been her own.

He plugged in a fan near his bed and turned it on. Then he sat down on the bed and stripped off his shirt. Perhaps she could drive back in the evening, when things had cooled down.


	5. Waiting in the Wings

Shirley sat next to Carmine and he tilted the fan so that it blew more on her.

She murmured, "That feels nice, thank you."

"You're welcome," he whispered, and then kissed just below her ear.

They started necking, but not frantically, like when they were younger. He was actually the last man she'd necked with, since Walter didn't really believe in making out. Hand-holding, hugs, and kisses before marriage, sex and necessary foreplay after marriage. Necking was "kids' stuff."

Necking was usually as far as she and Carmine went and they were, in all modesty, experts at it. Even after three years, they remembered where and how to kiss each other. And, yes, they weren't much more than kids the first time they necked, but they had necked as adults for over a decade.

As recently as 1967, it had been Shirley's job as a nice girl to guard the boundaries, but this time, when she pulled away and he started to apologize, she shook her head. Then she pulled her NOVA shirt off.

He stared at her with shock and desire, as if he didn't work with women who were curvier and far more unclothed. "Shirley?" he said as if he didn't recognize her, which perhaps in a sense he didn't.

"It's so hot," she breathed.

He shook his head. "You're like my sweet old girlfriend, a sexy coed, and a merry widow, all rolled into one." He had always had this ability to see her as utterly desirable. She had missed it, especially in her loneliness.

"Thank you, Carmine."

"Uh, Shirl, when did you stop wearing a bra?"

"About a year ago, but not all the time."

She'd gone to visit the Levys and it was muggy and smoggy in L.A. Hippies, women's libbers, and some fashion models had stopped wearing bras in the previous year or two. Shirley was none of these, but she liked the idea of wearing one less layer. She had nursed Wally only a few months before she started college, but her breasts were now fuller and less perky than before her pregnancy. Still, her chest was small enough that she could comfortably go without a brassiere.

Laverne, who was nursing Tracy, was amused. She had teased Shirley for years about bra-stuffing, so now she teased her about "letting it all hang out."

Lee didn't notice and wouldn't have cared if he had. But Squiggy noticed and cared.

"Good God, Woman, just because you're betrieved, it's no reason to lose all sense of descent!"

She pretended not to know what he was talking about. He spluttered and abruptly left the room. She didn't need Laverne telling her, "He wouldn't have noticed if he weren't checking out your headlights."

"Just when you go to see a nudie musical?" Carmine now teased.

"No, just sometimes on hot summer days."

"Today is very hot," he said, as two strong, warm hands started at her shoulders and lazily moved down.

She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she'd let him touch her bare chest. The first was in '55, when they'd, as Laverne would later put it, voe-dee-ohed after the junior prom. The last was in '66, when a trip down "the side-streets of Smut City" failed to elicit information. It was more common that he would fondle her chest over her sweaters and blouses.

She nuzzled his neck and licked a little sweat, as his hands cupped her bare breasts.

"They're so soft," he murmured, as he caressed them.

"Your hands are so warm," she whispered.

"Too warm?"

"Not with the fan on."

They French-kissed and he tweaked her hard nipples as he sucked her tongue. She knew he wanted to put his mouth on her chest, and she wanted it, too.

When they stopped to catch their breath, she rested her head on his pillow, her ponytails off to the sides.

He smiled down at her and then shifted so he could rest his head on one of her breasts while he kissed the other. His lips were very warm, too, but the fan was like a refreshing breeze. And he seemed to like the taste of her perspiration, especially where it pooled in her cleavage.

As he pleasured her chest, she knew the likelihood of leaving even in the evening was growing smaller, but for once she wasn't going to put on the brakes. And, yes, she felt unfaithful to Walter, or at least his memory, but somehow it felt less like cheating when it was someone she'd made out with so many times before. Whatever her mind and heart were going through, the rest of her body eagerly welcomed Carmine.

She'd heard that he'd grown out his hair for _Hair,_ where he'd played a hippie. It was still longer and fuller than she'd ever seen it before, although not as much as Lee's. Both men's hair was dark and naturally curly, but her fingers had muscle memory of Carmine's curls. She played with them as his fingers, lips, and tongue played with her breasts.

She let herself get more and more excited, unlike in the old days, when she had to control herself as much as him. And when one of his hands wandered down to her stomach and onto the button of her jeans, she spread her legs in anticipation.

He looked up at her face in surprise. "You're not stopping me."

"Well, I'm not exactly saving myself anymore."

He swallowed. "Right. Uh, do you use protection?"

She blushed a little. She had wanted a baby with Walter, after waiting so long to get married, and then of course she hadn't been with anyone afterwards, or planned to be. She wanted Carmine, but not his baby, not at this point in their lives. She shook her head and wondered if she should get out of his bed before it was too hard to stop.

"I've got condoms," he said and got out of bed.

She ogled him from behind, not just his bottom in shorts but the muscles of his back and shoulders. Then she couldn't help looking at his crotch when he returned in just briefs.

He teased, "Didn't you get enough of a look in the theater?"

"It's different when it's a private performance."


	6. The Conversation

Fifteen minutes later, Carmine's gorgeous naked body was on top of her, sweaty flesh meeting her own. He was slowly and carefully entering her, as if he were belatedly taking her virginity. "Oh, Angel Face!" he sighed.

Her body eagerly welcomed him in. "Yes, Carmine, yes!" she gasped as he filled her, inch by inch. It felt like a delayed payoff to their countless makeouts.

And yet, she wasn't a virgin and she had enough experience to know how to move around and under him.

"So good, Shirl!"

"Mmm, right there, oh!"

They started French-kissing, as if even now they couldn't get enough of making out. Mouths and private parts dancing, hands running everywhere.

He made her come by teasing and withholding and then plunging deep inside her. She knew he'd been with many women, but it felt like his skill was just for her.

When he came, he told her that she was the best. She pretended to believe him.

He carefully withdrew and lay next to her on his narrow bed. He took her in his arms again and whispered in her ear, "Stay with me, Angel Face."

"Well, I guess I could drive back in the morning." It would mean being away from Wally longer, but it was hard to tear herself away from Carmine after waiting so long.

He stroked one of her ponytails. "No, I mean stay with me for good."

She didn't know if he was proposing marriage or living together out of wedlock, but she blurted out, "I have a life in Annandale!"

He let go. "Of course." He got out of bed and went over to the beaded curtains in front of the door-less bathroom. He pushed through and after a moment she heard running water.

When he returned, the condom was off his now flaccid member. He said, "I can fill your tank if you want to head out."

"Do you want me to go?"

"Of course not, Shirl, but...."

"I'll need to call Jeanie if I'm staying late. Where's the nearest phone?" She'd have to freshen up and get dressed even if it was just downstairs in the deli, and she might have to walk to a phone booth. Either way, she'd have to call collect and reimburse Jeanie later.

He came back to the side of the bed and knelt, but reached under it. "Here," he said and set a phone next to her feet.

"Thank you. Don't worry, I'll call collect."

He shook his head and got to his feet. "My treat."

"I really appreciate it."

"You can show me your gratitude later," he said, going over to the tiny closet. He pulled out fresh clothes. "But I'm gonna get dressed and go for a walk."

She nodded, not wanting to thank him yet again. She appreciated him respecting her privacy.

He kissed her cheek before he left. She waited until he closed the door and she could hear his footsteps on the stairs before she went into the bathroom.

She decided to borrow briefs, shorts, and a T-shirt, rather than stay naked or put her sweaty clothes back on. Then she sat in a chair, rather than return to his bed just yet. She took a deep breath and then dialed.

It was a summer Saturday afternoon and entirely possible that no one was home, like if Jeanie took the kids to the park. Shirley could probably try again in the evening, but she'd rather get this over with before she discussed everything with Carmine.

"Meeney residence," said her ten-year-old nephew, who watched a lot of movies and television.

"Hi, Kenny."

"Hey, Aunt Shirley, how's New York?"

"Fun but hot. Can I speak to your mother?"

"Yeah, sure." He set down the phone and yelled, "Hey, Mom, it's Aunt Shirley!"

A pause and then "Hey, Shirl, how was the play?"

"Good, but I'm having some car trouble and I'll have to stay overnight."

"Oh. Where?"

"Um, I'm making arrangements."

"With Carmine?" Jeanie whispered, as if she didn't want her son to hear.

"That's right."

"Is he in the room?"

"Uh huh," Shirley lied, although part of her wanted to confess and seek advice.

"Well, have fun."

"Thank you. Give Wally a kiss for me and tell him Mama will be home tomorrow."

"I will. See you soon."

"Bye, Jeanie."

Carmine was gone half an hour. While she waited, she tried to imagine living in this simple little apartment. Perhaps if she and Carmine were married. She definitely couldn't imagine raising a child there. She hoped he wasn't imagining her abandoning her child. Even a day apart from Wally was difficult, and she was no Mrs. Kosnowski.

He came back with Creamsicles. Laverne was partial to what she still insisted on calling "Fudgicles," but Shirley actually preferred the lighter taste of vanilla and orange.

"I know it's not exactly health food, but you can pretend it's got Vitamin C."

"Thank you, Carmine," she said as she took one. "I'll try not to get any on your clothes."

He grinned at her as he sat down. "You look cute in my clothes."

Other than his letterman's jacket all through high school, she generally did not wear Carmine's clothing. She had once worn an entire outfit of Squiggy's to save her reputation, and Squiggy was closer to her build than Carmine was. However, the three of them were all about the same height, as had been reinforced to her during a magic trick where she didn't realize until she opened her eyes that she was no longer kissing Carmine. Squiggy was a surprisingly good kisser, as she was reminded a year later when she reluctantly agreed to get in a swan boat with him. She warned him that she would slap him hard if his hands wandered, but she was fine with kissing him in the dark. Meanwhile, Laverne made less restrictive restrictions on Lenny, and there was a lot of groping in the front seat. Squiggy would exaggerate the encounter a couple years later on television. 

She suddenly wondered why she was thinking so much about Squiggy when she was about to have a serious conversation with Carmine. It was probably just nerves.

At first they talked about the weather, including in Virginia, and then about ice cream. This led to her admitting that she had not yet let Wally have ice cream but she knew she couldn't avoid it forever.

"I bet you're a good mother."

"I do my best."

"I want you to know that even though I don't know a lot about kids, I'd do my best to be a good stepfather."

So that had been a proposal in bed, not an offer to shack up, perhaps leaving her son to be raised by Jeanie until they could afford a nicer apartment. "That's very sweet, but I'm in school now."

"We have colleges in New York, and nursing schools."

"I know, but who would look after Wally while I'm away?"

"We could put him in daycare. Or maybe you could take a break from school until Wally starts kindergarten."

She frowned. "And what if I want another child?" She had never intended for Walter Jr. to be an only child, but then Walter Sr. died.

"Then I'll give you one." He'd finished his Creamsicle by then and he set the stick upon the table. He took her free hand in his sticky one and said, "I love you, Shirley. I meant it when I said you were the best part of the Fifties, and you were the best part of the Sixties, despite how we ended." He smiled, that warm, flirty Ragusa smile she still knew so well. "And so far, you're the best part of the Seventies."

"Oh, Carmine," she sighed with longing and regret, affection and lust.

"Marry me, Angel Face, and I'll help you make all your dreams come true."

She was very tempted to say yes. Maybe they could make this work somehow. But her practical side kicked in. "Carmine, I still love you. I think I always have. But we haven't seen each other in three years and I can't just jump into a marriage. I know I've changed and I think you have, too. I think we'd have to get to know each other all over again."

"How are we gonna do that, living three states apart?"

She thought of suggesting they rendezvous in Wilmington, Delaware, but she said, "We could call and write, and visit occasionally."

"For how long?"

"Maybe a couple years, until I graduate."

He frowned. "I want you in my life, in person."

He'd never been good at waiting, cold showers aside. And she had the feeling that he might not be able to be exclusive if she weren't around. "Then maybe we shouldn't commit to even going steady long distance."

"So where does that leave us?" 

"Well, I want to finish my Creamsicle and then make love with you again, until I leave tomorrow morning, especially if Saul can leave dinner and breakfast outside your door."

Carmine grinned and let her finish her Creamsicle, although he kissed her neck during. She did her best not to drip on his clothes.


	7. Beware! The Blob

As Shirley showered at the Milwaukee Motor Lodge, she remembered showering in a rundown little theater the summer before. Carmine had given her privacy, although he was then earning a living being naked among other naked people, and although he had spent much of the last eighteen hours getting to know her body. They had to ease away from each other so she could go home.

They hadn't made any promises or plans in their letters and phone calls since then, other than an agreement to go to their fifteen-year high school reunion, separately. There were times when they'd thought about visiting each other, but they hadn't managed it yet.

And now she'd driven twelve hours, split over two days, to see him and whichever other classmates would show up.

She knew that Squiggy was splitting the driving from L.A. with the Levys. It was not an expedition she envied. She knew what Squiggy was like on a cross-country road trip, and Lee and Laverne's arguments and makeup makeouts were not anything she'd want to endure at close quarters. Not to mention that Tracy sounded like she was having very terrible twos.

Shirley had left Wally at home. He was three now but still too little to take so far by car, no matter what Laverne said. Shirley and son had flown to and from L.A. two years ago, which was stressful enough.

She could've flown to Milwaukee, but she told Jeanie she wanted to save money. The truth was, guilty as she felt leaving Wally so long, she needed a break from her life in Annandale. She was happy, but it was stressful at times, especially since she'd decided to become pre-med.

A couple days after she got back from New York, her eight-year-old niece asked, "Aunt Shirley, why are doctors mostly men and nurses mostly women?"

"I guess mostly tradition, Sweetie."

"Did you ever want to be a doctor?"

The truth was she had, and not just the time she pretended to be a male doctor. But her mother had told her to marry a doctor, not become one. Linda's questions made her question things she'd taken for granted for twenty years.

The coursework may not have been much tougher than for nursing, but there was the additional stress of being one of the few women in the program. Laverne teased, "You lucky dog! This is your dream come true, ain't it? All those hunky young future doctors."

Shirley didn't bother explaining that it was very different when she was competing with them, trying to be taken seriously by them, and by the all male professors. It didn't help that she looked so wholesome, cute, and petite. And she was supposed to be a good sport when someone, often a professor, made a sexist wisecrack.

She hadn't decided on a specialty yet, or a medical school. She was just trying to keep moving.

It felt strange to have finished her junior year of college about half a lifetime after she finished her junior year of high school. And the Fillmore Class of '56 was not exactly full of people who embraced higher education. Most of them married and/or got full-time jobs within a year of graduating. Shirley had hoped to be engaged at nineteen, but she'd been proud to have a good union job like bottle-capping.

After her shower, she dried her hair and put it in braids. Jeanie liked to tease that by the time Shirley got through medical school, it'd be in a bun.

She put on pink panties and the dress she'd bought especially for the reunion, with big bright polka dots on black and a hemline shorter than she'd dared in the Sixties. She hoped Carmine would like it.

As she slipped on her Earth Shoes, she wondered if Squiggy and the Levys had gotten into town by now. Along with everything else, Laverne was eight months pregnant. She'd insisted, against the advice of her doctor, her husband, and her best friend, on going to the reunion, so Shirley imagined the party from Los Angeles had had to make extra pit stops along the way.

It was warm enough, hot really, that Shirley didn't need a sweater. And she well remembered what the Fillmore gym was like in summertime.

She went out to her car and took a deep breath. She promised herself that she would have a good time, even if things didn't work out with Carmine. She would like to invite him back to her room, but she'd understand if he didn't want to start that up again.

She drove to the school and turned out to be one of the unfashionably punctual, which meant more talking to Mr. and Mrs. Eraserhead than she'd have liked. She was relieved when Terry Buttafucco showed up, looking stunning in a tall girl's version of a Mary Tyler Moore ensemble, from beret to boots, with a white blouse, wide brown belt, and tan miniskirt in between. (Laverne and Shirley were almost a year into their seven-year-long debate over which one of them was Mary and which was Rhoda, when the answer was obvious from the beginning.)

Shirley and Terry caught up and gossiped, including about how Rosie Greenbaum should not have worn hot pants with a fur vest. It was fun but Shirley missed Laverne.

Finally, after Terry asked, "When are the cute men going to show up?", Squiggy helloed, followed soon after by Laverne and her family.

Laverne was wearing a plaid maternity maxidress and looked about twelve months pregnant. Lee was in denim and carrying Tracy, who was crying. He had trimmed his facial hair down to a droopy mustache, although he still had what he would, in his bald years, longingly refer to as his Jewfro. Like many of the men Laverne was attracted to, he was tall, six two, which she adored, although it made Shirley feel like a midget when he set down his daughter and hugged Shirley hello.

"Sorry we're late, Tracy got a little carsick in this heat," Laverne explained as she gave Shirley a side hug.

"You haven't missed much."

"Well, well, well, DeFazio. Are you breedin' again or are you just never gonna lose your pregnancy fat?"

Shirley automatically fell into her old role of restraining Laverne. Laverne's firstborn, on the other hand, managed to projectile vomit something that looked like cherry Jell-O onto Rosie's floral-patterned platform gladiator sandals.

"Wow, I didn't think the kid had it in her!" Squiggy marveled.

It was as Laverne was insincerely apologizing and Shirley was looking in her purse for her travel-size tissues that Carmine said, "Hey, Gang, I want you to meet someone."


	8. The Creature Wasn't Nice

It said something about the awkwardness of meeting Carmine's new girlfriend that, after a handshake and a "How nice to meet you," Shirley volunteered to help Rosie clean up in the ladies' room.

First she had to untie the puke-covered lacings up Rosie's sturdy legs, as Rosie smoked a cigarette and griped about Laverne. Even for a pre-med with a preschooler, this was one of the most unpleasant tasks she'd undertaken in the past year.

"...bunch of pigs, and now she's having another piglet."

Shirley stood up. "Rosie."

"I know she's your best friend, Shirl, but she ain't never had no class. As I was telling Ogden just the other day...."

"Rose."

"What?"

"I don't think we'll be able to clean off your shoes."

Rosie reached into her Fendi purse and took out a dime. "Can you call Ogden for me and ask him to bring my black heels? He'll know the pair."

Shirley had talked to Rosie's husband maybe half a dozen times since their wedding almost fifteen years ago. He was a decade older than Rosie and never came to her reunions or any large gathering of her friends and acquaintances from the old neighborhood. Shirley wasn't eager to talk to him but it beat talking to Taffy, Carmine's girlfriend.

She took the dime. "Same number as always?"

"Yeah, thanks. And, Shirl?"

"Yes, Rose?"

"Don't worry about Carmine's little bimbo. Sure, she's young, blonde, and stacked, but that type never sticks around for long."

"I'm going to go call Ogden now."

She made her way through the gym as quickly as possible, narrowly avoiding Hector. Carmine was introducing Taffy to Pete and Bea, and Shirley knew she couldn't avoid them all evening, but she still needed to collect her thoughts.

She found the phone booth out in the courtyard where it'd always been. So many memories, of calling radio stations at lunchtime, trying to win something; Anne Marie, before she even thought of becoming a nun, pulling "Is your refrigerator running?" pranks; and Laverne calling cute boys after school, so her pop wouldn't ask questions if she did it at home. Oh, and Lenny and Squiggy somehow talking people into stuffing the booth for the "Grinnus World's Record." Shirley tried not to remember being jammed up against Carmine.

She sighed and called Ogden. It turned out that he was far more curious about which black heels his wife wanted than about anything Shirley had been up to in the six or seven years since they last met.

As soon as she hung up, someone tapped on the glass. It was Squiggy, not looking much different than he had fifteen years ago. Although he was fond of costumes, she'd noticed that he'd shown up to the reunion in his signature leather jacket, black T-shirt, jeans, and high tops.

She opened the door, hoping he wasn't planning to join her inside. "Hi, Squiggy."

"Hi, Shirley," he said, surprising her, because he always said "hello" and usually "Shirl." Then he asked, "Could you give me a lift to my motel?"

"What about the Levys?"

"Laverne and Levi are taking Tracy for a walk in the fresh air."

She decided not to point out that the evening was still muggy, or that Squiggy was the only person besides Lee's grandmother (who inexplicably adored Squiggy) who still called Lee by his given name. Instead she said, "You don't want to stick around?"

"Nah, I already danced with Anne Marie, so I'm good."

That raised a lot of questions, but Shirley just nodded and left the phone booth. They were able to go out to the parking lot and entirely avoid the gym. She might come back later, catch up with Anne Marie and whoever else she'd missed, but she didn't mind doing Squiggy a favor and having a longer break from their classmates.

When they got to the parking lot, she asked for directions and it turned out to be only a couple blocks from her own motel. Maybe she would just turn in early. She was staying a couple days because of her long drive, and some of her classmates still lived locally. She knew that Squiggy and the Levys were taking a two-week vacation because of their even longer drive. She could catch up with people more tomorrow, away from the official reunion.

"Nice car," Squiggy said when they got to her Bug.

"Thank you." Her niece and nephew had recently added turtle and toadstool decals.

She waited until they were buckled in and she'd started the car before she said, "So, Lenny couldn't make it?"

"Nah, he's in London, recording with Paul McKenzie."

"Paul McKenzie?" She didn't keep up with contemporary music like she had all through her twenties, before she had Wally. Kenny, now eleven, might know.

"Yeah, Lenny has decided to forgive him for breaking up the Beatles."

Instead of correcting Squiggy about the last name, she said, "I don't think it was all Paul's fault."

"Yeah, I mostly blame Yolky Owner. As the French say, search for the farm."

She managed not to laugh. "That's a great opportunity for Lenny."

"Yeah, the kid's doin' all right." She could hear the barely contained pride in his voice. Then he added, "Asides, I don't think he's ready to see Laverne in her wedded bless."

"Not that I don't feel bad for poor Lenny, but it has been three years and it's not like they were ever a couple."

"I think that makes it worse, that she never gave him a real chance with her. If they coulda dated more than on the casual, he'd have seen that she's just a dame like any other dame."

She slowly said, "It's hard not to think about what might have been."

"Yeah, like you and the Big Ragoo. But it's been four years since you got hitched, and he bounces back better than Len."

"True." She debated whether to tell him about her "date" with Carmine, but he had an idealized image of her wholesomeness, combined with a taste for gossip.

"For what it's worth, you're sexier than Taffy."

She blushed and tried to focus on the road. "She's young, blonde, and stacked."

"So are half the broads in Hollywood. You're smart and sweet and spunky, which all adds to your sexitude."

He was sparing in his compliments, even when he was on the make, so she wasn't sure how to react. Luckily, they'd reached his motel. She pulled into the parking lot and said, "Well, thank you and goodnight."

He waited until she'd parked the car and he'd unbuckled his seatbelt before he asked, "Can I get a hug goodbye?"

She figured she'd see him the next day, even if she had a girls-only brunch with Laverne and Tracy. (She planned to confess about her one-night stand, and Tracy was too little to understand, although maybe it would be better if Lee looked after Tracy for an hour.) But Squiggy was nicer than she remembered and she could use a hug herself. She opened her arms and his greasy little body slipped in.

A minute later, she was opening her mouth for his slippery tongue.


	9. Travels with My Aunt

With the rational side of her mind, Shirley was aghast that she was making out in a car with Andrew Squiggman. Besides the fact that she'd been repulsed by him in high school, she was a grown woman who should not be making out in public. And this was obviously a rebound because she couldn't have Carmine, which wasn't fair to Squiggy.

Not that he seemed to mind, judging by the way he was licking her teeth and caressing her dimples. She supposed there was no harm in kissing, as long as the Levys didn't come back early.

And then Squiggy nuzzled her ear and whispered, "You ain't wearin' a bra, are ya, Shirl?"

She'd hoped the design of her dress would disguise that, but her nipples had hardened in the last few minutes. "Not today, no."

"What about panties?"

"Squiggy!" she gasped, although she felt like giggling.

"Is that a yes or no?"

"That's for me to know and you to...." She trailed off, realizing what she was about to say.

"Oh yeah?" He put his hand on her bare knee.

"Not in the car, Squiggy."

"Shall we adjourn to my temporary abode?"

She was impressed that he used and pronounced all of those words correctly, but now she definitely didn't want Laverne spotting her car. And, yes, she could've just told him no, but she was curious, and aroused.

She knew that, unlike Carmine, Squiggy would not expect more than one night. He was the composer of "Night After Night" after all. Although she was no floozy, lack of commitment would suit her just fine this time.

"I'd rather go to my motel."

Squiggy grinned. "Ladies' choice."

She thought but of course didn't say that he would never be her first choice.

He left his hand on her knee as she started the car and drove to her motel. It was distracting but less than if he'd moved it upward.

"You're so close," he murmured.

She didn't know if he meant that her motel was close to his, or she was close to having sex with him. But she just said, "Mm hm."

She parked the car and unfastened her seatbelt. Squiggy hadn't bothered to buckle up again, and she hoped that wasn't an omen. He'd always been a blend of recklessness and scheming.

She put her keys back in her little handbag, so different from her mom purse and her college backpack. It was just big enough for essentials.

They got out of the car and he came around to her side to give her a surprisingly soft kiss on the lips. Then he took her hand, which surprised her further, because handholding wasn't them, not together. Laverne and Lenny used to lead each other around by the hands, but Shirley was more likely to put her arm around Squiggy's shoulder and he was more likely to, well, grope her. (Not that Lenny didn't of course grope Laverne, and occasionally Shirley.)

She led him to her room and unlocked the door with one hand. Then she was going to lead him to the bed but he let go of her hand and shut the door. Then he whispered, "Stay right there," and dropped to his knees.

"Squiggy?" she said in disbelief, feeling like they'd skipped steps, and having expected to make out more first. Walter would've at least waited until they were in bed before launching into foreplay.

"I'm just finding out," he said before putting his head under her skirt. And then she felt his hot breath on her thighs as one hand ran along the waistband of her panties.

"You see? I'm wearing underwear."

"Are you?" Squiggy asked as he started to slowly ease her panties down her thighs.

"Well, I was."

"Yeah, but until I looked, it was like Schroeder's pussycat."

Even if she'd had a reply to that, it would've turned into a gasp as he kissed between her thighs. Carmine had kissed her there a year ago, as part of their nighttime lovemaking. Walter would occasionally offer it as foreplay, although manual with his precise doctor's hands was more common. She had wondered if Squiggy would offer it, but she had again expected more of a transition.

As he continued to bury his head in her crotch, she thought about what a sloppy kisser he was sometimes, and indeed he seemed to have no actual technique. He was just kissing, licking, sucking and rubbing like his time was limited and he was going to get as much off her as he could before she changed her mind.

Then one hand wandered up the inside of her dress and found her chest. She groaned and leaned against the door. As he flicked and then caressed one nipple, she found herself rolling her hips and throwing one leg over his shoulder. She opened herself further for this strange and yet familiar man.

He squeezed and rubbed that breast as if happy to get to second base, while he broke the laws of several states with his mouth. (Wisconsin wouldn't repeal its sodomy laws until 1983, the same year that Laverne's adolescent daughters would cry over their favorite show being cancelled. Fifteen years after that, Squiggy would joke at Wally's wedding banquet that Virginia still hadn't repealed its laws.)

Shirley rubbed against the face of her son's future father-in-law, feeling his hair-worm tickle her naughtily. Even the awareness of how unlikely this encounter was did not prevent her climax.

He pulled his hands and head out from under her dress. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his leather jacket and then got to his feet. "Well, Shirl, can I get a handjob or should I just head out?"

She blinked. "I thought you wanted to...."

"Voe-dee-oh-doe?" The old term, which was only used by those who grew up on Knapp Street. "I appreciate the offer, Shirl, but I left my rubbers in my suitcase."

She hesitated and then said, "I have birth control."

Now he blinked. "But it's three years since you had the Meeney wienie!"

She just barely managed not to laugh. "I thought something might happen with the reunion," she confessed.

"Yeah, that's why I packed the love gloves. So where is it?"

"In my handbag."

"Can I see?"

She hesitated and then took out the clamshell case.

"A diaphan, huh? That's a very Feeney kind of contracept."

She didn't want to ask what he meant by that. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to go put it in, and since it's my first time using it...."

"Lemme wash up and I'll do it for ya."

She knew she probably should refuse, but she decided to trust him. "All right."

"Don't go nowhere."

"I won't." She didn't point out that her panties were pooled around her Earth Shoes and her legs felt like overcooked spaghetti. As soon as he disappeared into the bathroom, she leaned against the door again.

It seemed that this was really happening. Andrew Squiggman was about to become the third man she let inside her once carefully guarded body. Well, inside her beyond his fingers and tongue.

She straightened up enough to start unzipping her dress. She had just gotten to the part of her back where it was tricky to reach, when Squiggy returned without his jacket. Her eyes dipped down automatically to the bulge in his jeans. Unlike Laverne, she'd never been a crotch-watcher, but under the circumstances, she felt a peek was justified. Her gaze guiltily jumped up to his face, which was frowning.

"I was sorta hoping you'd leave your dress on."

"Oh."

"It's OK, naked is nice, too." He stepped closer and put one hand on her back. She shivered as he pulled the zipper the rest of the way down, and she knew it had nothing to do with the air-conditioning. She remembered him fixing her zipper a dozen years before, and Lenny spreading rumors about it. She thought of asking him not to tell Lenny, but she knew that was probably impossible. She might even confess this to Laverne, someday.

Soon her dress fell to the floor and now she was nude but not barefoot.

He stepped back and looked at her from her shoes on up. Then he leered and said, "You wanna feel how hard you've made me?"

She stepped closer again and reached for his belt. They necked as she undid the belt, button, and zipper. He growled and squeezed both her breasts as she touched his bulge through his black briefs.  


"You got any jelly?" he breathed in her ear.

"Jelly?" Did he want a sandwich at a time like this? Or maybe this was related to the honey fetish he'd revealed on the same _Dating Game_ episode where he made the swan-boat encounter sound like the wildest date he or Lenny had ever been on.

"Yeah, for the rim."

"Rim?" So far he hadn't thrown any perversions at her she couldn't handle, but he might be too kinky for her after all.

He sighed impatiently and took the little purse off her shoulder. He took out not only the clamshell but what looked like her travel-size tube of toothpaste. Oh, that jelly.

She'd of course practiced with the diaphragm and contraceptive jelly in the gynecologist's office. As a future doctor herself, she wanted to be responsible. But this was definitely her first time using it with a partner. She felt like she was in an alternate dimension as she watched Squiggy squirt the jelly onto the rim and center of the cap. "You've done this before."

"I'm a armature obgyne," he said as he tucked the clamshell and tube back into the handbag. Then he hung the bag on the doorknob.

"I see," she said, looking nervously at the contraceptive in his hand, thinking of how he might be holding her whole future. If he did this wrong, she might bring home an unplanned souvenir from Milwaukee. That was not how she intended to give Wally a little brother or sister.

Squiggy nuzzled her neck. "Relax, Shirl, I know you ain't out to marry me and have my babies no more."

She laughed shakily. "Yes, my priorities have changed as I've gotten older." It didn't seem the moment to point out that this delusion was one she'd spent about a decade debunking.

"Yeah, you gotta focus on being a good mutter and future doctor. But you're retitled to a night off once in awhile." He licked her neck and parted her legs with his hand, but this time he inserted her diaphragm. Then he slid his hand out and put it on her bare stomach. "Shirl, I want you to know...."

She hoped he wasn't going to say he'd still respect her in the morning, or this wasn't just a one-night stand. "Yes, Andrew?"

"I ain't got no diseases."

She blinked. "Diseases?"

"Yeah, I've been celebrant for a couple months in honor of the reunion. And I got tested before hitting the road."

"That's very thoughtful of you, but how did you know I'd say yes?"

"Woman, you wasn't the only dame at the reunion."

"So how many did you ask for a lift to your motel?"

"Just one," he admitted. "And only cuz Taffy is a ex-client of mine and she'd thanked me for asking Carmine to show her around New York when she first hit town."

So it was Squiggy's fault that Carmine had a new girlfriend. She now wondered if this was one of Squiggy's long-range schemes, to throw a girl like that at Carmine, hoping to get Shirley on the rebound. The question was, had Carmine spilled the beans about his rendezvous with Shirley last summer?

"Of course, Fate probably woulda thrown them together eventally, seein' as she's Lucille Lockwash's niece."

She stared at him. "Taffy Lockwash?!"

"Nah, Lockwash was her first married name. Lucille's housemaid name was Nutter."

"Taffy Nutter?! It sounds like a dessert!"

"Yeah!" he said with the gestures that were usually accompanied by Lenny biting his hand.

"Quit that!" she snapped, slapping his arm.

"Anyway, sorry about that when you ain't seen the Big Ragoo in four years, but he hadn't seen Taffy in like twelve or thirteen, and he didn't recognize her of course."

She gasped in horror as realization dawned on her. "Mrs. Lockwash's little niece Tiffany, with the freckles and pigtails? I once babysat her!" Laverne had called her a sap, doing it as a favor to Carmine so he and Lucille could go on a picnic in the countryside.

"Yeah? Well, she's all growed up now. And speaking of pigtails, I like this Swiss Miss thing you got goin' on." He tugged on one of her braids with his unjellied hand.

"Thank you."

"Any chance of you growin' your hair down to your nips? Cuz that's a real sexy look."

"I, uh, hadn't really given it any thought."

"Well, you already look sexy enough for my purposes."

She tilted her head. "And what exactly are your purposes, Mr. Squiggman?"

He leered again.


	10. Big Man on Campus

"I wanna do it standing up against the door, holding your bare left foot in my hand, but you can keep the other shoe and sock on."

That was weirdly specific, but Squiggy was specifically weird. "Not on the bed?"

"Nah, not when you're my first opportuning in awhile with a short woman."

"I see. And who's up against the door, you or me?"

"You of course."

Of course. She could've argued about it, but at this point she felt committed to seeing where the evening, and Squiggy, took her. Obviously, she would literally put her foot down if he did anything painful or too uncomfortable, but she was willing to see what Squiggy was like, well, not in bed. After all, she and Laverne had spent years speculating on Lenny and Squiggy's sex lives, from "What did they mean by 'a nice quiet little orgy'?" to "What exactly were they doing to those girls they picked up at the beach to make them think they caused an earthquake?"

She leaned against the door again, this time bending her left leg and trying not to feel like the lady of the evening she once portrayed in an Army training film. (She'd been so innocent then, thinking the role was just that of a bimbo, but Laverne hadn't caught on either.) He bent down to simultaneously kiss her left nipple and undress her left foot with his cleaner hand. Then he straightened up and said, "Can you put it in? Your hands is more clean."

She winced at his grammar and felt another wave of disbelief that she was being intimate with Andrew Squiggman.

He must've partially read her mind, because he said, "Believe it or not, you're my first college girl."

"Well, you're my first valedictorian." She had felt a different sort of disbelief when that was announced back in '56. It turned out to be a technicality, based on the year Lenny missed due to ringworm, but before that could be straightened out, Squiggy had given the most ungrammatical and cynical graduation speech Fillmore High had ever witnessed. Yet, as Laverne observed, "At least he didn't cuss."

"Yeah, but mebbe you'll wind up with some nice nerd who's reached drinking age your senior year and he can be your second validdick."

She didn't want to think about when she dated a college boy about six years earlier, and she'd felt like a bit of a cradle-robber, or about Carmine now dating a girl who was college-age but "a student of life," as Shirley overheard her tell Bea. Shirley certainly didn't want to think anymore about what Squiggy did to the English language, so she put his erection inside her, as she said, "Or maybe I'll be valedictorian."

Squiggy's reply was incoherent but enthusiastic.

They didn't talk much as she did a full-body Shirley Shimmy she hadn't known she was capable of, and he thrust quickly in and out of her. Just when she was beginning to think he didn't have any technique at this either, he started groping her everywhere, but methodically.

It felt like he'd studied a sex manual recently, or her years ago, because he was somehow finding her most sensitive spots, not all of them obvious. He even varied the pressure and the pace in response to the sounds she made. She wouldn't exactly call him a sensitive lover but he was an observant one.

She shut her eyes as she came but stared at him after he said, "If you turn around, you won't have to look at my ugly mug."

"Squiggy!" she gasped.

He withdrew and spat, "You thought I forgot that, didn't you?"

She knew what he meant, although technically she didn't say he was ugly. She just was pressured into picking him as the least attractive person of the seven playing Rhonda's stupid truth game. "I didn't mean it like that, and obviously you're very sexy," she was very glad Laverne wasn't around to hear that, "but if you're asking for...."

"Yeah, I know you can't get enough of my body, even if you're not crazy about my face, but I've been wanting to give you dogged style since the phone-booth-stuffing."

She remembered now, Squiggy had been on her other side, while Carmine was holding her against the glass. (Elsewhere in the booth, Rosie was necking with Hector, while Laverne kept saying, "Watch the hands, Len!" but not slapping him.) Squiggy hadn't gotten fresh with her, not with Carmine right there, but apparently he'd wanted to take liberties that would've gotten them expelled instead of suspended.

(The suspension made Lily Feeney nag Shirley, and Frank DeFazio and Carmella Ragusa rant incoherently in Italian. Squiggy hung out at the pool hall so his mother and stepfather wouldn't notice, and Lenny's father was never home during the day anyway. Hector and Rosie's parents didn't even care. And Anne Marie had wisely chosen to be the "counter," so she didn't get in trouble.)

Shirley had honestly mostly done missionary before this evening, and not terribly much of that, since she'd been pregnant most of her marriage. But she turned her back to Squiggy, braced herself against the door, and leaned forward enough to show that her heiney wasn't as tiny as in the old days. (Unlike poor Laverne, who would never fully lose the weight from her pregnancies, Shirley was slim and trim by the time she started college, but she would never again order a Hubba Hubba supplement, and not just because the company went out of business.)

"Woman!" he cried, but not angrily. Then he was all over her, taking her from behind, as one hand pulled her braids and squeezed her chest, and the other reached down her front and dedicated itself to what he referred to as "her little copilot."

She had never laughed so much during sex as she did now. Squiggy probably would've gotten huffy and offended, if she weren't also panting and moaning. Well, he was swearing, but he wasn't storming off. 

Just when she thought he was about to climax, he pulled out and spilled his seed on one of her buttocks. "Just in case, I didn't put the diaphan in right, since I'm a little rusty," he explained as he let go of her.

"Oh," she said, having run out of words.

"I can get dressed and walk over to my motel to get my rubbers if ya want. I just gotta rest a minute."

She turned around and saw him stumbling to the bed. She didn't know what she wanted. She was enjoying her time with Squiggy far more than she ever could've imagined, but maybe they'd done enough.

Before she could figure out a reply, she heard him snoring. She well knew his ability to drop off to sleep suddenly and soundly, although she'd never shared a bed with him. Yet. She sighed, finally slipped off her other Earth Shoe, and went over to unlace and pull off his high-tops. It beat undoing Rosie's puke-covered gladiator sandals.


	11. The Joy of Natural Childbirth

Shirley dreamed of wedding bells. When the minister asked if anyone had objections to her marrying the faceless groom, a familiar voice said, "Hello."

Then she felt someone nudging her shoulder. "Shirl, it's for you."

She cautiously opened one eye. She vaguely recognized the scenic painting on the wall. She was in her motel room, with Squiggy.

She rolled over and looked at him. "Why did you answer it?"

"It woke me up. Besides, ain't that what you're supposed to do with a ringing phone?"

She remembered him once answering her phone in her Knapp Street apartment, and insulting her mother. It was unlikely that Barb Feeney was calling now, since she mostly sent letters and waited for Shirley and Wally to visit her in California, which they hadn't done since they stayed with the Levys in 1969 and wouldn't again until the summer of '74, when Shirley was halfway through the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.

It occurred to her that it might be Jeanie, although her sister-in-law had promised not to call unless it was an emergency. Shirley was trying to resist calling home, although she missed Wally and felt guiltier than ever, leaving him and behaving like a floozy with a man she didn't even always like.

She grabbed the phone. "Hello?"

"Well, that answers two of my questions."

"Good morning, Laverne." Shirley supposed it could've been worse. It could've been Carmine on the line.

"Good morning, Shirl. I won't ask if you wanna get breakfast with us, and now I don't have to ask if you've seen Squiggy."

Shirley did not want to have this conversation yet, especially with Squiggy in the room. "Actually, why don't you and I have lunch together?"

"You gonna be done with Squiggy by then?"

"Laverne."

"So how drunk were you last night?"

"Not at all."

"Then he must've gotten you stoned." Laverne started laughing really hard.

Shirley wanted to scold her, especially since Squiggy was right there and could probably hear their friend's increasingly hysterical laughter. But Shirley couldn't say she was surprised. If this had happened to anyone else, say Terry, she would've been just as amused. (Well, probably more so because of the size difference.) However, her reaction would've been more polite and restrained.

"OH GOD!" Laverne gasped, but as if she was laughing so hard it hurt. Then it sounded like the receiver hit the floor.

"Mommy?" said a scared, sleepy little voice.

"Baby, it's all right," Lee said and Shirley wasn't sure if he was reassuring his wife or his daughter. Then he picked up the phone and said, "Shirley, Laverne's water broke and I have to get her to the hospital. She'll call back later." His voice was amazingly calm, but then he slammed the phone down.

Shirley had listened to all this in stunned silence. She felt guiltier than ever. She clutched the receiver and the dial tone droned in her ear.

Squiggy stroked her bare shoulder and cooed, "Well, My Little Buttoncup, shall I go get the scumbags?"

"Not now, Squiggy. Laverne is going to have a baby!"

"I know. I was squashed in a car with her halfway across America."

"No, she's going to the maternity ward right now."

He shook his head. "That's impassible. The new kid ain't due till next month."

"Well, the baby apparently can't read a calendar." She did not feel like telling him that Laverne's amusement at their rendezvous had brought this on.

"Yeah, kids can be stupid sometimes. So you wanna just skip a rubber and use your diaphan again?"

She was struggling to be patient and not lose her temper. "I need to go to the hospital, whichever one Laverne's in." Good Samaritan Medical Center seemed likely, since it was close by and its historic name was Milwaukee Hospital Maternity Pavilion, although Bostonian Lee wouldn't know that and Laverne might not remember it under the circumstances.

"Why?"

"What do you mean why? She's my best friend!"

"Yeah, but you wasn't around when she had the first kid."

"I wasn't in the same town. And I think Lee would appreciate someone helping him look after Tracy today."

Squiggy sighed in weariness and disappointment, but he said, "In that case, I'll go, too, seein' as I'm practally Tracy's godfodder."

She didn't ask how a Lutheran could have a godchild by a lapsed Catholic and a Jewish agnostic. She said, "Fine, but I'm showering first."

"You don't wanna shower togedder?" he asked seductively.

Her body wanted to. It well remembered the unexpected pleasure his body had given her. But she had never, unlike Laverne, let her body control her. Even last night was as much about curiosity and comfort as it was about lust. At the same time, she wanted to let him down gently, because he was an old friend she'd gone through a lot with.

"Rain check?" she offered, figuring she wouldn't see him again until her next trip to California, by which point he would probably have moved on.

"You wanna shower in the rain?"

"No, I mean maybe some other time."

He scowled. "Woman, I don't give second chances."

"Then I want to thank you for my first chance." She kissed him like she had after their double date to La Fondue, well, except that this time they were lying in a motel bed and she was wearing only one sock. She meant it to be an end to this "date," although she was very aware that it might lead to more.

When she sat up, Squiggy slapped himself, as he had that evening a dozen years ago. She didn't look to see if his leg or any other part of his anatomy popped. She got out of bed and put her duty to her best friend first. She didn't need her medical training to know that Laverne having her baby a month early was concerning. This one-night stand with Squiggy was more ill-advised than ever, except that, unlike with Carmine, Shirley hadn't taken anyone's advice but her own.


	12. Meet Wally Sparks

Lenny was late. Shirley had had further to drive but Lenny was much more easily lost, and not just on the road.

"You're not going to sleep with him, are you?" Jeanie had asked in her direct way.

Shirley had laughed. "With Lenny? We don't have that kind of relationship."

Walter's sister knew about Shirley's one-night stands with two very different men who had pursued her in high school, and after. Jeanie didn't understand that just because Lenny was another neighbor boy, admittedly also a friend, unlike say Hector, it did not mean that Shirley ever had romantic or sexual feelings about him.

Shirley didn't try to explain about Lenny and Laverne, since she'd never fully understood that relationship herself. But she suspected, based on Lenny's constant wandering the past four years, he still wasn't over her marriage. So even if Shirley had wanted him, she would've resisted.

Most of the time, Shirley felt like "Leonard's" big sister, although they were the same age, both 34 now. He had always been more innocent and open than Squiggy. Even his perversions seemed more direct. She still remembered how she'd given his overly sensitive foot a "sponge bath" and he'd been unable to hide his pleasure.

There had always been an unspoken agreement that Lenny "belonged" to Laverne, as Squiggy belonged to Shirley, although Shirley had never asked for that. Whenever the boys and girls paired off, for everything from asking a favor to dance lessons, that was how the pairings were, well, 99 times out of 100.

Still, she followed Jeanie's advice and again packed her diaphragm. She'd learned from her experience with Carmine and more so Squiggy that sex could blindside even someone like her, the former Shirley "Waiting for the Wedding Night" Feeney.

She hadn't seen Lenny in almost five years, and she wondered if he'd changed as much as she had. Like her other Milwaukee friends, he had not travelled to Annandale for her recent college graduation. She didn't hold it against them, particularly Laverne, who had two very small children to look after.

(Laverne didn't hold the premature birth of Josephine, named after both her mother and a paternal aunt, against Shirley or Squiggy. Josie was healthy and Laverne said, "It was worth changing her from a Leo to a Moon Child to get one of the biggest laughs of my life.")

Shirley's own mother hadn't come to her graduation, still holding it against Shirley for not inviting her to the rushed wedding to Walter. "I'll come to your medical school graduation or your second wedding, whichever comes first," she wrote to Shirley. It wasn't that she wasn't proud of Shirley. She was just never very good at showing that.

Shirley's father had died of cirrhosis of the liver while Shirley was in Germany, shortly before Walter died in Vietnam. The double loss hit her hard, even though she hadn't seen much of her father in recent years. But it made her all the more determined to do something meaningful with her life. Not that she didn't love being a mother, but she wanted to take care of others, and at first being a nurse seemed the best way to do that.

"It's why I went into dentistry," said her cousin Mikey, who had gone to her graduation. So had her favorite brother, Bobby. He'd never married and he hit it off with Jeanie, but Shirley was trying to resist matchmaking in this case.

As for everyone else, she knew when she left first Milwaukee and then Burbank that she'd have to give up regularly seeing her once close-knit family and circle of friends. And even though Annandale was closer to her scattered loved ones than Berlin had been, it wasn't exactly near anyone. Yet when Lenny wound up in Nashville, she thought they should make an effort to meet up before he moved on again.

"After all," she'd said when she called him at the number Squiggy passed on, "we're both living in the South now."

"Yeah, but not the Deep South. The Shallow South I guess."

The question was where to meet. Shirley did not want to drive all the way to Nashville, but she didn't particularly want her worlds colliding to the extent of having to introduce Lenny to Jeanie. The two of them eventually agreed on Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, where their adopted states, as well as Kentucky, met.

So here she was, in the middle of gorgeous scenery, half wishing she'd brought Wally along, but knowing that that would've changed the nature of the visit. If Lenny wanted to confide in her about Laverne, she wanted to be able to listen, and that wouldn't happen with her small son around. And it wasn't even that Wally, although an only child and the youngest of the cousins on both the Feeney and Meeney sides, was especially spoiled or attention-seeking. In fact, he was a quiet, mild-mannered child, as Shirley had been at his age. ("Before Hurricane Laverne landed," as Barb Feeney would put it.) He was growing up understanding things like "Mama's homework time," although sometimes she'd curl up with him and a textbook, or give him an extra college blue book to draw in. (Animals were his favorite subject.) But he was still a four-year-old boy and it wasn't like he could be ignored while Lenny poured his heart out.

Shirley took a deep breath of fresh air, even though she was standing on the edge of the parking lot. She hoped that Lenny remembered which part of the park they'd agreed to meet at, because she didn't feel like going looking for him. (She knew Laverne would, even now.)

She was just about to give up and start exploring on her own, when a rusted pink '56 Cadillac Eldorado rolled up. A moment later, a tall man with long blond hair in a ponytail stepped out, looking pale and shaken.


	13. Mr. Ricco

Lenny waited until they were on a hiking trail before he explained what happened. Shirley had had plenty of time to study the maps before he got there, so she chose a path that was scenic but not strenuous. Therefore, she was able to look at the trees and hills as they made small talk, but she looked at Lenny enough to try to match her memories to the present.

As with Squiggy the summer before, he didn't look drastically different from how he looked in high school, long hair and clear complexion aside. He was in a white T-shirt, jeans, and motorcycle boots. He wasn't wearing his "Lone Wolf" jacket, but that came after high school.

She was in sneakers, shorts, a George Mason U T-shirt, and a Dodgers baseball cap that Mr. DeFazio bought her at the game he insisted on taking her and Wally to on her last visit to L.A., although he knew she'd never followed sports, and her son was just one at the time. She seldom wore the cap, but she thought it would offer some protection from the sun that afternoon. She'd pinned her braids up into a sort of German style.

"Your hair is so long!" she and Lenny exclaimed simultaneously.

She laughed but he frowned. Then he muttered, "I got stopped by the cops."

"Oh, Lenny, what did you do?"

"Thanks, Shirl."

"I'm sorry." She knew it wouldn't help to explain that he and Squiggy used to dress like hoods and do a lot of dubious if not illegal things back in the old neighborhood.

He waved his hand dismissively. "They didn't like the car I was driving."

"Well, maybe if you did something about the rust," she gently suggested.

He shook his head. "It ain't my car."

"Lenny!" she gasped in shock and dismay. How could he have stolen a car and taken it sort of across state lines? And why did she feel oddly flattered?

He exhaled impatiently, even though he was the one drawing this story out. "I borrowed it from a friend."

"A friend?"

"Yeah, Larry Leroy Hamilton, the singer I'm working for right now."

"Oh, my sister-in-law likes him. I mean, it's not like when you were doing sessions work for Paul McCartney last year, but I'm still impressed."

"That was unreal. All of this has been."

She really wanted to ask him more about Paul, but she was still concerned about him being stopped by the police. "So Mr. Hamilton loaned you his car?" she prompted.

"Yeah, see, I've never had a car of my own. Me and Squiggy would drive our Shotz truck, and then the ice cream truck. And since I left L.A., I've been mostly getting around by bus and train, except when I went to and from England of course. But Larry Leroy said, 'Take my car and go see that little gal.' "

"How did he know I'm petite?"

"I told him I was the tallest person in our circus of friends from Knapp Street."

"Oh."

"Anyway, the cops didn't like the 'Impeach Nixon' bumper sticker."

This was just a few weeks after the Watergate break-in, when the removal of the 37th President was unfathomable to most of the country. But Larry Leroy Hamilton was a pioneer of what would come to be known as outlaw country, and Shirley could imagine him having such a sticker. "Oh no!"

"Yeah, it's kinda faded cuz it's been on there three and a half years, so I never think about it. But you don't want that on your car when you're driving through little southern towns, especially if you're a man with long hair. It gave me a little taste of what it's like to be DWB."

"BDWB?"

"Yeah, driving while Black. That's what Rick and Dave call it."

"Rick and Dave?"

"Yeah, Carmine's old roommate Rick West and Dave Franklin, the bassist I got to be friends with when we worked with Lona Walsh."

She still hadn't met Rick but she watched him every week on Wally's favorite PBS program, _Water Works_. (According to Laverne, three-year-old Tracy preferred _Sesame Street_.) As for Dave Franklin, she didn't know any sessions musicians by name, other than Lenny, since it was the nature of the profession to not draw attention to itself. "I love that solo album, _Lona Alone_ , by the way."

"Thank you, but it's a good thing the fuzz didn't know I'm a musician, and it was good I wasn't dressed more like a hippie. As it was, they confiscated my pack of cigarettes."

"You smoke?" she said in surprise. Squiggy had never mentioned that, but there was a lot about their mutual friends that they never discussed.

"Yeah, for about four years now." She immediately connected this to Laverne's marriage, but he continued, "They said they'd test them later in 'their lab' to make sure they weren't funny cigarettes. But when I drove away, the two of 'em were lighting up."

"At least they didn't arrest you."

"No, but they came close when I wouldn't let them take my jacket."

"Your jacket?"

"Yeah, you remember my old Lone Wolf jacket?"

"Of course."

"Well, the pigs would've had to pry that out of my cold, dead hands."

"Leonard, don't insult," she paused, "swine."

They both giggled guiltily, but then he frowned and said, "It was sittin' on my passenger seat cuz I take it everywhere. They thought it was a gang jacket, which is stupid because lone wolves don't travel in packs."

As a future veterinarian, she couldn't fault his logic, but she said, "How did you keep them from taking it?"

"I told them it was a gift from a girl I used to know and I was driving to see her. I hope you don't mind me fibbing about you."

"No, it's fine, but about Laverne—"

"Oh, look, a doe, a deer, a female deer!"

She let him distract her with wildlife sightings, but she promised herself that she would bring the topic up again before they parted.


	14. Waiting in the Wings

Shirley scanned the Cumberland Gap Diner menu, hoping to find the healthiest option. She would probably just have to settle for something without meat, which likely meant macaroni. (In Roanoke, she'd had a lunch of mushroom Wellington with rosemary and pecans, dirt-cheap in the vegetarian restaurant she'd discovered, although by decade's end the Happy Turnip would be much more upscale.)

"Y'all ready to order or you need some more time?" the gray-haired waitress asked.

"Just a few more minutes please," Shirley said.

"Take all you need, Hon. The dinner rush is over."

The diner was pretty empty as the summer sun set. "Thank you," said both Shirley and Lenny.

After the waitress walked away, Lenny said, "I heard you're a vegetarian now."

"Mostly, yes."

"Is that because you're going to be a vet?"

"No, I've felt this way for awhile."

"I thought you were going to be a nurse, and then a people-doctor."

"I was but you know I've always loved animals." For a moment, she half expected Squiggy to walk through the door and say hello. "I like the idea of taking care of them and making them healthier."

"That makes sense. Would it be OK if I had the meatloaf?"

"I don't mind if other people eat meat."

"Thanks, Shirl. It's just sometimes I miss home cooking."

She didn't point out that they were in a restaurant. She understood that he must sometimes grow tired of wandering without a real home, although it was his choice to live like this.

The waitress returned and took their orders. While they waited for their food, Shirley told him about the past few years, from life with the Meeneys, including her little son, to some of her college experiences. Then he shared anecdotes from his musical career. (She was pleased to hear that Paul was as nice as he seemed, but she couldn't help wishing that Lenny had met Ringo.) Their food came as he was explaining how Mockingbird, Iris, and Raccoon Studio got its name from Tennessee's state bird, flower, and wild animal, but it also symbolized the "country outlaw" sound.

As they started on their macaroni and meatloaf, she risked bringing up the past. She went easy on him at first, just lighter, funnier stories from living on Knapp Street. He seemed fine hearing and even saying Laverne's name, as if she was just part of their once indivisible pack of friends.

It was when they moved on to dessert (a slice of chocolate cake for Lenny, a fruit cup for Shirley) and Burbank that the conversation grew more strained. At last, Shirley couldn't help gently saying, "Laverne told me she hasn't seen you since her wedding but you send postcards."

He burst into tears.

Shirley felt guilty, especially since, despite his crudeness, he had always been the most sensitive boy and then man she knew. At eighteen, he cried buckets when her mother expected her to move out to California, and Shirley and Lenny were barely even friends then. However, as a med student and longtime armchair psychologist (even before she and Laverne could afford an armchair), she didn't want his broken heart to fester any longer.

She handed him a couple napkins from the dispenser and said, "You have to move on, Len."

"What do you think I've been doing for four years? I keep trying to start over, with new places and new women, but I can't forget her."

"You don't have to forget her. She is your dear friend and you will always care about her. But remember, even though I know as well as anyone how special she is, she's not perfect."

"She is to me," Lenny said quietly but stubbornly. "Even her flaws are perfect."

Shirley had never known a love so devoted and unconditional. And it was being wasted on a woman who had never asked for it and who was happily married with two small children.

"Lenny," Shirley said as gently as she could, "I hope you understand that Laverne isn't going to leave Lee."

He shook his head. "I always wanted her to find someone who made her happy, like with Randy Carpenter. I love her enough for that. I just got caught off guard that I could still feel like I lost something that I never really had."

She nodded. "I know it's hard. But you've got to make peace with it somehow, for your own sake."

"How did you, I mean, I know it's not the same thing, but how did you deal with losing the love of your life?"

She couldn't admit that she was no longer so sure, as she'd been five years ago, that Walter was the love of her life. They'd loved each other, but they never got to know each other that well. Perhaps that would've come in time.

"It helped that I had a baby to take care of, to love. And now I also have a meaningful career to work towards. And, yes, it isn't the same, but maybe you could make your music the center of your life."

"Yeah, it's not the same. Sessions work is just work. I enjoy it, but it doesn't consume me."

"Do you need to be consumed?"

"I'm kind of an obsessive guy, Shirl."

She nodded. She saw that in the past, with his thorough embrace of Squiggy's plans and schemes, as well as how he showed his interest in some women besides Laverne, from mooning over a waitress he was too shy to speak to, to wanting to follow his girlfriend Karen to New York after dating a very short time. (She knew from Carmine that Karen had finished grad school and moved on by the time Lenny got there.)

Lenny crumpled the soaked napkins and tossed them on the table. He stood up and said, "I'm gonna go use the facilities."

As he headed to the men's room, she noticed two things. One, the place had cleared out and the only other person around, besides presumably a cook in the kitchen, was the waitress, who was reading the evening paper behind the counter. And two, Lenny still had a nice tushie in tight jeans, as Laverne had drunkenly remarked eight or nine years ago. Shirley guiltily returned to her fruit cup.

The waitress, whose nametag said Birdie, set down the newspaper and came over. Shirley expected her to offer a doggie bag for Lenny's slice of cake, but she said, "Can I give you some advice, Sugar?"

"Um, sure," Shirley said, although she had the feeling it wouldn't be food-related.

"Give that tall drink of water somethin' to smile about."

Shirley blushed. "Its not that simple."

"Y'all are both single, ain't ya?"

"Well, yes, but he's hopelessly in love with my best friend, and we've never thought about each other that way." Well, almost never.

"I'm not sayin' you should marry the man. One night together might be just what you both need. And here's the check."

Shirley now saw that Lenny was coming back from the men's room. The waitress glided away as Lenny sat down. Lenny reached for the check, but Shirley said, "It's OK, I've got it."

"You sure? We could at least go Dutch."

"No, you might need bail money on the way back," she half joked.

"How about I just do the tip?"

Lenny didn't say it suggestively, but Shirley still hoped Birdie didn't hear it. She took money out of her purse and said, "That would be fine."

Lenny did the math on a clean napkin and then, as he left what he deemed a fair amount, he said, "Squiggy told me you're a Women's Libber now."

She was in some ways, she supposed, but considering how much she'd gone along with Squiggy's directions for their encounter, she didn't know what he was basing that on. However, she did not care to discuss either of her one-night stands in front of their waitress.

"Thank you, Birdie," she said as they stood up, leaving it ambiguous what exactly she was giving thanks for.

"Yeah, my compliments to the chef," Lenny said with utter sincerity. (None of them could've known that within the next couple years Lenny would grow accustomed to eating in restaurants that employed chefs, restaurants that would make La Fondue look like Dead Lazlo's Place.)

"Y'all come back now, ya hear?"

Shirley had to wonder how much of Birdie's Southern routine, including the Kentucky twang, was exaggerated for the tourists. Shirley also had to stop herself from saying she'd be back for breakfast, because she didn't want the waitress to tease her as Laverne had about Squiggy. (For that matter, Saul had apparently teased Carmine when the actor called down to the deli for delivery of not only dinner but breakfast.) So Shirley just thanked Birdie again.

Out in the parking lot, she and Lenny stood between the Volkswagen and the Cadillac. "I like the decals," he said.

"Thanks, my niece and nephew like to decorate my car because it's cuter than their mother's." Jeanie drove a sensible station wagon and wouldn't have wanted the decals, the latest being butterflies and racing stripes, on her car anyway.

"Cute as a Bug," he said with a smile, and she blushed a little, even though she was sure he was still talking about the VW. Then he gave her a warm hug with his long arms and said, "It was good to see you again, Shirl."

"You, too, Len," she said, resting her head against his chest, noticing as if for the first time that he was taller than most of the men she'd hugged in her life, her six-foot-plus brothers of course excepted.

"I always feel better after our serious talks."

They hadn't had many. One was after JFK was shot, a loss that hit them both particularly hard, she because she was Irish, he because he was Catholic, both because they were less cynical than Laverne and Squiggy. (The latter, despite voting for the Helmut-Squiggman-like Nixon, immediately started forming conspiracy theories, while Laverne brushed away Shirley's "Why him, Vernie?" and her own tears with "The good always die young, Shirl." But then this was after Randy died in a fire.)

The one that stood out the most though was after Rhonda's stupid truth game. Shirley and Lenny had given each other good advice and said what they valued in each other. The very fact that she wasn't as close to him as to Carmine or even Squiggy made it more memorable. Well, that and Lenny licking off the chocolate pudding that Laverne had flung in her face. "Just pretend I'm a mama cat, Shirl," he'd said, and he did manage to do it in a not too perverted way.

"Me, too," she murmured now.

"I should probably head out," he said, although he didn't let go and she could still hear his heartbeat. "I won't make it back until after midnight, and that's if the fuzz leaves me alone this time."

She surprised herself with "Maybe you should stay over, so you don't have to drive at night."

He loosened his hold enough to meet her blue eyes with his own and say, "Do you think there's a vacancy at your motel?"

She swallowed. "No, I mean stay with me."

Now he let go. "Oh, do you have a chair? Or I could sleep on the floor, I don't mind."

She'd seen him sleep on coffee tables and bureaus, in boxes and bowling alleys, so she didn't doubt he could probably even curl up like a cat and sleep in her Bug if he had to. She felt a little like when she tried to drop hints about a "good time" to innocent Richie Cunningham (who was half the age Lenny was now) so that Potsie Weber and Laverne could win his & hers TV sets. It wasn't that Lenny had never thought of her "that way" (her "cake girl" experience, which she might never have to tell to a daughter, proved otherwise), but unlike Squiggy, Lenny had not spent most of his life waiting and expecting to share a bed with Shirley. (That last year's sex had taken place outside the bed was one of life's little ironies.) "No, Leonard, I'm inviting you to share my motel bed."

He stared wordlessly at her before whispering, "Then I'd better buy a toothbrush."

She wasn't sure if he knew she wasn't just offering kissing and maybe necking, but perhaps it wouldn't go beyond that. She was just glad he now brushed his teeth more than weekly.


	15. Bingo

Shirley waited nervously for Lenny. She had followed Carmine upstairs to his apartment, and driven Squiggy to her motel. But after she gave Lenny directions to this motel, which wasn't that far from the diner, he went looking for a store that would sell toothbrushes and would still be open after eight o'clock on a Saturday.

As she turned on the color television mentioned on the sign out front, along with the much more critical air-conditioning for the humid Cumberland region, she wondered if she should've just told him she could ignore the taste of meatloaf this once. She decided against taking a quick shower while she waited, although she did change to the Knott's Berry Farm T-shirt she bought when she'd returned to Southern California as a tourist. And she had put her panties and shorts back on after inserting her diaphragm. Thinking of Lenny's foot fetish, she was now barefoot.

She opened the door when someone knocked, not even asking who it was. The first couple years in the basement apartment on Knapp Street, she had suspiciously demanded, "Who is it?", and she and Laverne would wield baseball bats that Mr. DeFazio had provided them with. But after the Milwaukee Masher had broken in and stolen some of their clothes while they were at work, not to mention Lenny and Squiggy more peacefully but repeatedly invading the basement, whether or not the girls were home, it seemed a little pointless to ask who was at the door. (That Shirley had two suitors who would announce their arrivals in song, "Rags to Riches" and "Blueberry Hill," helped.) This evening, she figured that if it wasn't Lenny, he'd be along soon.

It was Lenny, wearing his Lone Wolf jacket and holding a little paper bag. He greeted her with, "Hey, Shirl, can I borrow your toothpaste?"

"Of course, Leonard." Thanks to Mikey's graduation gift of a year's worth of dental supplies for her and Wally, she had plenty of paste. In fact, if she'd only known, she could've provided Lenny with a dozen toothbrushes.

"Thanks." As he went into the bathroom, she sat on the foot of the bed and went back to watching CBS. When he returned, without the bag, he sat next to her and said, "Oh, I like this show. Rhoda is so cute and funny." It figured that he would prefer the wisecracking New Yorker to the wholesome Midwesterner, and Shirley tried not to take it personally.

They sat close but didn't touch as they watched. Perhaps this night would go more innocently than she'd imagined, at least until they had to lie down.

She stood up when _All in the Family_ came on, since there was no channel-changer. "We don't have to watch this."

He half-smiled. "I'm not offended by the word 'Polack.' "

She hadn't even thought of that. "Um, no, it's just that Michael Stivic reminds me a little of Lee."

"Oh, I guess." She was about to sit back down and watch the show, when he asked, "Do you think he makes her happy? Not Meathead and Gloria."

She turned off the TV before she sat down again. "It's hard for any outsider to know exactly what goes on in a marriage, but, yes, I think they're both very happy. They do fight a lot, but then they have great, um, greater communication."

He grimaced in a way that reminded her that he was neither as innocent nor as stupid as she sometimes thought. "Is that a nice way of saying make-up sex?"

She blushed. She knew she should not be discussing Laverne's sex life, perhaps not any of Laverne's marriage, with Lenny. She pivoted and said, "Laverne needs someone to challenge her, to push back. I don't mean physical pushing, but with words."

He nodded. "I think that's why it didn't work out with her and Officer Norman Hughes. He was tough with criminals, but he'd do anything Laverne wanted."

"Yes, and she likes sweet guys, but she either takes them for granted or thinks she doesn't deserve them."

"So what you're saying is even if I got with Laverne, it wouldn't have worked out anyway?"

"I don't know, Len, but for whatever reason, and, yes, I know I'm partly to blame for this, especially in the old days, she was never able to make that leap for you."

"Kinda like you could never quite marry Carmine?"

She cautiously said, "I guess I took him for granted."

He patted her bare knee and said, "Shirl, when I was in New York last fall, both Carmine and Squiggy told me about being witcha."

She could've played dumb and said she'd had lovely visits with both men, but she covered her blushing face with both hands and cried, "Oh God!"

"Don't worry, they don't know about each other. They both told me not to tell no one, but obviously you don't count."

She was relieved about that but still so embarrassed that Lenny knew. Not that she could entirely blame Squiggy for telling his best friend, especially given how much the boys knew about and in some cases witnessed of each other's sex lives. After all, her best friend knew, through no fault of Shirley's. She and Laverne, unlike Lenny and Squiggy, never went into detail on their sex lives, although apparently Laverne and Rhonda did the year between Shirley's departure for Germany and the death of a rabbit on Tracy Levy's behalf.

Shirley peeked through her hands like she was at a scary movie, and like she'd wanted to do at _Oh! Calcutta!_ "You and Carmine talked about me?"

"Well, yeah. Squiggy was off buying souvenirs and Carmine asked if I still hadn't talked to Laverne, which of course I hadn't, and then that led to you, because he'd been in kinda the same boat when you married Walter, except Carmine handled it better than me. And he told me about your visit the summer before, two summers ago now, and how he'd hoped it'd lead to somethin' but he figured it was just as well, since he was crazy about Taffy then."

She lowered her hands and nodded. She and Carmine were back to exchanging friendly letters and he'd mentioned his break-up in passing, but neither of them had since attempted to revive their old spark. Perhaps if they were both single at the time of the twentieth-year reunion, when she'd be done with vet school, but she had no plans to see him in the meantime.

"I was surprised of course, by both of 'em, but everybody's changed since the old days, and Squiggy told me that when he saw you two years before, three years ago now, you was the type of Women's Libber who shaves her legs but don't wear a bra, so you wasn't no dyke or nothin'."

She felt a mixture of amusement, annoyance, and greater embarrassment. "Yes, Leonard," she said with all the dignity she could muster, "I'm heterosexual."

He grinned and put his hand on her knee again, this time leaving it there. "What a coincidence." He dipped his head and kissed her on the lips, a softer, more tentative kiss than the ones he'd occasionally stolen in their 20s, like when she was sleeping in the Oshkosh Bus Station. But when she kissed back, his kiss got wetter and more enthusiastic.

She suddenly remembered a dream from over five years ago, shortly before she met Walter. She had had a few dreams about Squiggy over the years, dreams she of course told no one about, although Laverne once told her about a dream where they were elderly spinsters who almost married Lenny and Squiggy, until Shirley objected. This dream of Shirley's had the four of them entangled romantically like in a soap opera, so unhappily married Shirley and Squiggy were having affairs with Lenny and Laverne respectively. Her lover, in his chauffeur's uniform, was surprisingly dashing, even more than he'd been in his magician's costume when he took Laverne to a debutante ball. He was also disconcertingly sexy, in a slightly brooding if clumsy way.

Real Lenny stopped kissing and looked into her eyes with passion and uncertainty.

"Lenny, could you kiss my hand?"

He smiled and she waited to see if he'd give it a Continental kiss on the back of her hand. But, leaving one hand on her knee, his other hand lifted one of hers to his mouth and softly kissed the palm. Then he nuzzled and licked her fingers, just like "Leonardo de Chevy" had. She shivered with pleasure and amazement. She didn't stop his other hand from moving up her bare legs, and in fact she clasped the hand on her knee.

After awhile, he moved their mated hands under her shirt and touched her bare chest. Then he leaned in to whisper, "Squiggy says you like to be eaten out."

She blushed but said, "If you wouldn't mind."

He grinned. "Not at all." He dropped to the floor, not too clumsily.


	16. Rude Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter repeats a section from _Sessions Work_.

Shirley was again waiting nervously for Lenny, this time lying naked in bed. He'd again gone to brush his teeth in the bathroom, but this time he promised to bring one of the condoms he bought that evening.

"Squiggy told me about your diagram, and I think I felt it with my fingers, but, well, I ain't exactly been livin' like a monk, so, well, I wasn't sure if you'd wanna but just in case."

She'd kissed his cheek. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness."

He was her fourth man, which on the one hand seemed ridiculously small for a woman her age, especially in the 1970s. (Edna Babish had racked up three husbands and several boyfriends by 34, and that was in the '40s.) And on the other hand, Shirley felt like a floozy, considering she'd been raised to only be with her husband, and here she was having yet another one-night stand. Still, it wasn't like she was sleeping with strangers.

She was more nervous about being with Lenny than she'd been for the surreal encounter with Squiggy. After all, Lenny got attached very easily, and she knew how vulnerable he was. Also, she felt like she didn't really know what to expect from him in bed, although his cunnilingus had been both attentive and enthusiastic.

And of course there was the Laverne factor. Even though Laverne had no claim on Lenny, Shirley couldn't imagine she'd be happy about this, yet would it be right to keep it a secret? Shirley still hadn't told Laverne about finally being with Carmine, and that would be an easier subject to broach. She decided she'd try to tell Laverne on her next visit to California, whenever that would be. (She had no way of knowing that, by then, Lenny's sex life would be the subject of much speculation among his fans and the press.)

When he reentered from the bathroom, he was shirtless and barefoot. She let her eyes dip from his pale, almost hairless torso to the crotch of his jeans, but she got distracted by the pack of cigarettes poking out of his front pocket. She almost scolded him but decided it wasn't the moment to play mother hen.

He came around to the side of the bed and turned his back to her. This time she felt she had the right to ogle his bottom as he undid his jeans and eased them to the floor. She couldn't help remembering speculating to Laverne on where he bought his underwear after he stripped down to his skivvies in their living room a decade ago. Shirley did not think she'd ever tell Laverne about his plain gray boxers. She had no way of knowing of the acting job she'd have to do over the phone when Laverne, while Lee was working late, just had to call up and ask if Shirley had seen the April 1975 issue of _Cosmo_ with "The Count of Rock" wearing nothing but a teddy bear and a teasing smile.

This summer night on the border of three states, Lenny was just a lowly, lonely sessions musician whose underwear had been seen by maybe twenty or thirty women. Judging by his reaction to her kisses and caresses as he lay next to her, that expressive face, the whispered "So soft and sweet, Shirl," he was as love-starved as the little boy Rosie used to mock for having no mother almost thirty years ago. ("Fightin' ain't ladylike, Vernie," Shirley had scolded as she applied Band-Aids to her best friend's face and chubby little fists, tried to fix the torn Brownies uniform with safety pins. Laverne had defiantly replied, "No one makes fun of Lenny Kosnowski except me and Andy cuz we're his friends and he knows we don't mean it.")

Shirley also remembered warning Laverne about "hurting that boy," and all Laverne had done was give Lenny a little kiss and a little pep talk about girls. Shirley knew Lenny might develop a crush on her, but she decided to risk it, especially since the need between her legs could be filled by the bulge in the gray underpants.

He'd set a condom on the blanket and she reached for it as he sucked on her breasts with fervor and his long fingers teased in and out of her. "Lenny," she panted, "can you put the safety on?"

He looked up at her in surprise. "I thought you was gonna do it. Squiggy said he was gonna have you put it on if you'd let him go get his rubbers."

"Oh, all right," she said in irritation and embarrassment. She didn't want to know just how much Squiggy had told Lenny about that encounter.

(She would've been somewhat relieved to know that, unlike Squiggy, who, before he even asked Lenny, "What's my take on the McKenzie gig?", blurted out, "Well, I finally bagged Shirley," Carmine would limit himself to a more gentlemanly, "It was the best night of my life, a night that went from just after the Saturday matinee to a long kiss goodbye before she drove away in that yellow Bug." And, yes, he was in love with Taffy Nutter as he made this dreamy-eyed confession to Lenny.)

Lenny scooted so that his head was on a pillow, his long blond hair coming loose from the ponytail, and his bulge straining towards the ceiling. She shifted so that she could strip off his boxers and then put the condom on. She felt a bit nurse-like and efficient, so she gave the tip a little kiss.

"Shirley," he whispered, "can you...?"

She hoped that he wasn't going to ask her to suck him. She knew from Walter that she wasn't very good at it. Carmine, maybe because he still thought of her as a "nice girl," hadn't asked, although Squiggy probably would've if Laverne hadn't woken them. It wasn't something Shirley felt comfortable talking to her sister-in-law about, but sometimes she'd thought of asking Laverne for advice about it (she knew from the Levys' kisses and jokes that they were a very passionate couple), but she'd always assumed she'd wait for a steady boyfriend, which might not be until after vet school. Still, she supposed Lenny would be good to practice on, since he was so sensitive and grateful. She looked up at his face and said, "Yes, Lenny?"

"Can you get up on top? I like that better with short women."

"Um, sure." She didn't explain that she was seldom on top of the not-tall men she'd been with. She carefully mounted him and then, tentatively at first and gradually more enthusiastically as he urged her on with words and upward thrusts, she rode to mutual although not simultaneous orgasm the man that Ringo Starr would later nickname "Mr. KosNowAndThen." Meanwhile, his big, warm hands caressed her everywhere.

Afterwards, she carefully dismounted and lay next to him, not knowing what to say or whether she should try to cuddle. But when he rolled away, reached down, took the pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his jeans, and lit up, she couldn't help saying, "Please don't smoke, Lenny."

He stubbed out the just lit cigarette in the ashtray labelled Property of Cumberland Inn. "Sorry, Shirl, force of habit."

"You know it's bad for you."

"Is this you talking as a future doctor?"

"This is me talking as a friend."

He rolled over and looked at her. "We are still friends, right, Shirl?"

She patted his arm. "Of course, Len."

"I mean, I'm not in love with you, but I do love you."

"I feel the same way about you."

"Good," he sighed in relief and snuggled up against her.

She stroked his hair. "Oh, Leonard. You really are just a boy, aren't you?"

"I'm over a third of a century, you know."

"I know."

"Was it, was it weird after you and Squiggy, um?"

"By definition, I knew that was going to be weird, before, during, and after."

"Why'd you do it?"

"Curiosity, among other emotions."

"I don't think we should tell anyone," he said, and she knew he meant about them, not about her and Squiggy.

"You're not going to put me in a song?" she teased.

He answered seriously, "I don't write songs anymore."

She stroked his cheek. "Because of Laverne?"

Instead of directly answering that, he said, "Do you wanna know how I started smoking?"

"Um, OK."

"Do you remember Squiggy's old girlfriend from Chicago?"

"The one with the beehive?"

"Yeah. After Laverne's wedding, Squiggy suggested I get out of town, check out the music scene in Chicago. 'Francine can show you around.' "

"Wait, wasn't this at the time of the Democratic Convention riots?"

"He thought it'd be a good distraction, but they was over by the time I got there."

Shirley shook her head. That was the same Andrew Squiggman who had thrown Lenny in Lake Michigan four years before, in an unsuccessful attempt to "cure hydrophobia."

"Francine distracted me in other ways, which I don't think Squiggy intended, although I never quite understand how that little guy's big brain works."

"So did she give you sex or cigarettes?" Shirley asked, inadvertently contributing a line that would end up in the Larry Leroy Hamilton song, one of Jeanie's all-time favorites, "Nadine, Nadine (You Got Me Addicted to Nicotine)."

"Both. Squiggy don't know about neither. Well, he knows I've been gettin' 'em these past four years, but not where from."

"They're not an item though, right? He and Francine?"

"Nah, he hasn't seen her since the time she came to L.A. and saw me droolin' over Sabrina Bouche but really wantin' Laverne to sing with me."

"Well, don't worry, I won't tell him. But you might want to, someday."

"Yeah, maybe." He kissed her ear. "Are you gonna tell Laverne about us? I mean eventually."

"I probably should, but there's no hurry. You understand, don't you, Lenny, that this can't be a regular thing?"

"Yeah, but I'm glad it happened. Like I said, I always feel better talking to you, and, that was some pretty nice sex, Mrs. Meeney."

She chuckled. "Yes, I think you're going to be in my Top Five for awhile, Mr. Rockstar."


	17. More American Graffiti

Big Rosie Greenbaum sprays her suspiciously grayless red hair as if she doesn't give a crap about the ozone layer, as she says, "Pete is as hunky as ever."

"Rose," Dr. Shirley Meeney gently scolds, "Bea died a month ago."

"Exactly. He's finally on the market."

Shirley knows that, happily married although her best friend is, Rosie swooping in on a mutual old crush would not be appreciated. "I don't think it's a good idea to casually sleep with former classmates."

Rosie rolls her eyes. "Thank you, Mrs. Wait for Both Wedding Nights."

Shirley finds herself saying, "For your information, I happen to have had three one-night stands from the Fillmore High class of '56!"

Rosie looks at her skeptically. "Yeah, who?"

Shirley manages to come up with the names of three male classmates who are not in attendance at the twenty-fifth year reunion, being either dead and/or overseas.

"All three of them?" Rosie cackles. "And they call me the Merry Widow!"

Shirley shakes her head. "It wasn't like that."

"Oh, what was it like?"

Shirley looks into the restroom mirror but her gaze is into a past that feels like another life. "One of them was romantic, one was sweet, and one was weird."

"Tell me about the weird one."

"Hello," says, not Squiggy, who only enters ladies' rooms to convince insecure women to sing or when held at gunpoint, but Laverne DeFazio Levy Kosnowski.

"DeFazio," Rosie says warily.

"Greenbaum," Laverne replies curtly.

They have agreed to a truce, but Rosie acts as if it's only a matter of time before one of Laverne's offspring projectile-vomits on the burgundy Ferragamo pumps. Laverne joked about this earlier to Shirley, "Too bad it's too late in the day for my morning sickness to kick in."

She now waves her Polaroid Instant and says, "Shirl, I wanna get a shot of our two families together before we go, since it's Wally's first time at a reunion."

Shirley can see that Rosie is having a hard time not saying something about Laverne "dragging her brats everywhere," so she says, "Talk to you later, Rose," and leads Laverne back out to the gym.

She sees five children by the refreshment table and is close enough to hear twelve-year-old Tracy Levy do a pitch-perfect imitation of Maureen McCormick's singsong "Wally!" on _The Brady Brides_. Thirteen-year-old Walter Meeney, Jr. rolls his eyes, while ten-year-old Josie Levy giggles so much that Pepsi shoots out of her nose and onto her sister's Mikey and the Landtones T-shirt, bought at a swap meet last summer. Meanwhile, seven-year-old Fabrizio "Frankie" Levy earnestly explains dinosaurs to Monica Theodora "Moth" Squiggman, but the not-quite-five-year-old keeps shrilly screaming, "Dead lizards is evil, except Jeffrey!"

As always, Shirley can't help wanting to matchmake for the future, but as her second husband embraces her from behind, she knows that just because you grow up with someone, it doesn't mean you'll grow old with them. At least not without some more growth as adults.


End file.
